The 2014 Zagreb Chess Open will be held on 17-24th March at the Panorama Zagreb Hotel, Krešimir Ćosić Square in Zagreb, Croatia. The nine round Swiss tournament is organized by the Zagreb Chess Union and the Zagreb Sports Union. The total prize fund is 7800 EUR, with 1550 EUR reserved for the champion. Last year [...]

The 12th Sagaalgan Chess Festival 2014 took place from 28th February to 2nd March at the Buddhist University “Dashi Choynhorlin” in Ivolga Datsan, near Ulan-Ude in the Russian Republic of Buryatia. The tournament was organized by the Russian Chess Federation, Buddhist University “Dashi Choynhorlin”, Republic of Buryatia and the Chess Federation of Buryatia. The 13-round...

The program was distributed to 60 000 chess fans for free with PC Magazine

The 36th Marchand Open will take place on 8-9th March at the Strong National Museum of Play, One Manhattan Square, Rochester, NY 14607. The event is marking the 100th anniversary of Erich Marchand birthday and the 25th anniversary of the Rochester Chess Center. The tournament format will be 5-round Swiss and there will be four [...]

The 21st Annual Western Class Championships will be held from March 7-9, 2014, at the Sheraton Agoura Hills Hotel, 30100 Agoura Road, Agoura Hills, California. The event has 7 sections: Master, Expert, Class A, Class B, Class C, Class D and Class E. All sections have either 3-day (March 7-9) or 2-day (March 8-9) schedules [...]

Recently I got an enquiry about personal coaching and the first question was how useful chess is for brain development? I got very annoyed and replied that you should Google it and you will find many other tools for answering. I understand and agree that chess is useful for brain development but this is just […]

Συμπληρωματική προκηρύξη για το 12ο Ομαδικό Πρωτάθλημα Μαθητών Μαθητριών Περιφέρειας Δυτικής Ελλάδας και το 26ο Ατομικό Πρωτάθλημα Μαθητών Μαθητριών Περιφέρειας Δυτικής Ελλάδας

The 13th Rochefort Chess Festival was held from 21th to 28th February at the Congres Palais, in Rochefort, France. Just days before the huge Cappelle-la-Grande Open, the Rochefort Festival was an excellent occasion for the players to test their preparations and use the perfect training opportunity. 50 players competed in the Masters section which was [...]

  Wednesday evening I returned to Iceland for the second half of the Icelandic league. The first half of the season had gone very well, see http://gawainjones.co.uk/return-to-iceland/ and we were fighting for the top couple of places and qualification for the European Club Cup which will be in Bilbao in October. I want to start this update […]

More than 250 participants, including 130 GMs and more than 200 players with international titles from 27 different countries, started playing round 1 of the EICC. With 23 World Cup places at stake, all players entered the long battle with high desire for decisive games. Exactly this desire, combined with the high rating of the [...]

Magnus Carlsen recently launched an Official YouTube Channel, following his successful challenge for the World Championship. It is good to see that he is starting with the basics. His first training video concerns the three things that players should be thinking about in the opening phase of the game, namely, development, king safety and central […]

Stockfish declared winner on more games with black

Results and information round 1

Broadcast with official permission by the Armenian Chess Federation

One of the best examples of a successful amateur in chess is my friend Gerard Welling, the Dutch IM. Gerard has considerable talent, of course, but he has never been a professional, and what makes his play so interesting nowadays is his excellently-thought out approach to tournaments. The recent Gibraltar international was a great example. […]